Ozone layer depletion worries Fed Govt

The Federal Government has expressed worries over the rate at which human industrialisation is fast destroying earth’s protective layer – the ozone layer.

The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Environment, Mrs. Fatima Mede, spoke during this year’s international day for the preservation of the Ozone layer and the 30th anniversary of the Vienna Convention on the protection of the ozone layer in Abuja.

The theme of this year’s celebration was: “Thirty years of healing the ozone together.”

According to Mrs. Mede, the theme demonstrated the efforts of parties to the Montreal Protocol and Vienna Convention in protecting the Ozone layer over the past three decades.

She said the objectives for both the Vienna Convention and its Montreal Protocol were for the parties to promote cooperation through systematic observation, research and information exchange on the effect of human activities on the ozone layer and adopt measures that would help to phase out the use of Ozone depleting substances(ODS).

The Vienna Convention and its Montreal Protocol, she said, had in the last three decades galvanised 198 nations, who worked in phasing out Ozone-Depleting Substances (ODS) to protect the ozone for this generation and future generations, thus significantly contributing to global efforts to address climate change.

“Over 98 per cent of ozone depleting substances has been reduced by the Montreal Protocol and by scientific evidence. The ozone layer is healing itself and expected to recover by the middle of this century. This has been achieved primarily by the prevention of large increases in ultraviolet in most parts of the globe,” she explained, adding that over 100 million cases of skin cancer will be avoided with the implementation of this protocol and many millions of extra cases of cataracts will be prevented by 2100 as well as positive improvements in agriculture and agro-allied products.

She added that the collaboration, which has yielded success in ODS consumption data reporting and its import, have kept Nigeria within compliance of the protocol’s ODS phase out schedule.

Mede commended the performances of world bodies, such as UNDP and UNIDO as the implementing agencies of the Montreal Protocol in Nigeria. She called for the cooperation from the bodies, saying it is the key for the country to remain in compliance with the Montreal Protocol provisions.